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This week, I'm going to recommend Shinto and Japanese New Religions by Byron Earhart.

It's topically fitting with what we're covering right now,

and as a bonus, it's narrated by Gandhi himself, Sir Ben Kingsley.

Go to audibletrial.com slash Japan to claim your copy. Hello and welcome to the History of Japan podcast, Episode 86, The Way of the Gods, Part 2.

This week, we're picking up our narrative on the history of Shinto right where we left it off, at the time of the Meiji Restoration.

The victory of the Restoration Coalition and the ascent of the Emperor to Political Power

was, in theory, a pretty big win for Japan's native religion, which of course was only

debatably a religion at this point.

Since Shinto was tied directly to the imperial family, and in theory the whole idea of restoring

power to the Emperor came about because, according to

the more hard-line Shinto ideologues out there, he was the only one who could legitimately

rule Japan, it seemed like Shinto was perfectly positioned to become the new state religion.

This seemed all the more likely because Buddhism, its only real competitor, was as a political

force discredited because of its association with the Tokugawa.

Since the Buddhist establishment had been so closely tied to the shogunate for so long,

in particular handling what amounted to the national census, the new government was deeply suspicious

...